Category: Brexit

A Joint EU-UK court for citizens’ rights: A viable option after and beyond Brexit?

The European Law Blog will be taking a summer recess. We’ll be back end of August with new commentaries, including on key Summer developments. Please do send us on your contributions throughout this period and we will get back to you in due course. Happy Holidays to all our readers!

By Oliver Garner

Introduction

An impasse in Brexit negotiations exists between the United Kingdom and the European Union regarding the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union. This post will consider the legal viability of a proposed solution to this stalemate: a joint EU-UK court to adjudicate upon citizens’ rights. Although the proposals have limited the substantive remit of such a potential court to citizens’ rights, due to this area being the most contentious between the EU and the UK, in principle one could envisage a joint court with jurisdiction over all aspects of the withdrawal agreement. It may be argued that such a solution would be politically unacceptable for the European Union as it allows the United Kingdom to “have its cake and eat it” through a substitute for the Court of Justice over which the withdrawing state has far more influence. However, this post will focus on the legal rather than political viability of the proposal. This post will consider the proposal with a particular focus on whether the joint court could violate the Court of Justice’s stringent conditions for protecting the autonomy of the EU legal order. A comparison will be drawn to the similar proposals for an EEA court in the original EEA agreement, and the eventually established EFTA court. Finally, beyond the United Kingdom’s withdrawal, the post will move on to consider whether the idea of a joint national and European court could provide a solution to the problems that arise from the unique composite nature of the EU legal order. Continue reading →

‘It’s not you, it’s me’: Article 50 and the future EU-UK relationship

By Alessandra Asteriti

On 14 May 2017, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis was interviewed on ‘Peston on Sunday’ and the topic was, unsurprisingly, Brexit. The contentious issues of the sequencing of the negotiations according to the Council’s Guidelines for withdrawal arose. As is now known, the Chief Negotiator for the EU, Michel Barnier, has insisted that the issues of EU citizenship rights, the UK’s financial liabilities and the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are resolved before any discussion of the future trade relationship with the UK can proceed. This position was further affirmed in the Negotiating Directives issued by the Council on 22 May 2017 which deal exclusively with the negotiating priorities of the Withdrawal Agreement. The goal of this contribution is to point out that the plain language of Article 50 does not in fact envision the necessity of a future, separate agreement to deal with the future relationship between the EU and the UK, contrary to much debate both at UK and EU level. To be perfectly clear: I am not arguing that in fact the future relationship is not likely, or even bound, to entail such as an agreement. The argument is instead entirely predicated on the textual interpretation of the Article. Continue reading →

Opinion 2/15 and the future of mixity and ISDS

By Laurens Ankersmit

Opinion 2/15 on the EU’s powers to conclude the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA) delivered Tuesday received considerable attention from the press. This comes as no surprise as the Court’s Opinion has consequences for future EU trade deals such as CETA and potentially a future UK-EU FTA. Despite the fact that the ECJ concluded that the agreement should be concluded jointly with the Member States, the Financial Times jubilantly claimed victory for the European Union, belittling Wallonia in the process. This victory claim calls for three initial comments as there are aspects of the Opinion that might merit a different conclusion. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: May 2017

Conference on the Legitimacy of Unseen Actors in International Adjudication

The Hague, 26-27 October 2017. Deadline for abstract submissions: 31 May 2017.

Call for applications: Summer School „Fundamental Rights and EU Trade Agreements”

University Centre of Bertinoro, 25-30 June 2017. Deadline for applications: 15 June 2017.

Conference “Freedom under Pressure – Data protection and privacy, the freedom of movement in the EU and property protection”

Ghent University, 7-8 December 2017. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 June 2017.

Workshop “Resolving the Tensions between EU Trade and Non-Trade Objectives: Actors, Norms, and Processes”

Utrecht University, 10 November 2017. Deadline for abstract submissions: 1 July 2017.

Conference “Constitutionalism in a Plural World”

University of Porto, 22-23 November 2017. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 July 2017.

Call for Papers for the Irish Journal of European Law Volume 2017 on Brexit

Deadline for submissions: 28 July 2017.

“In Light of the Guidelines”: Brexit and the European Council Revisited

By Darren Harvey

Introduction

Following the delivery by Sir Tim Barrow of a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk notifying the European Council of the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU, the two-year time period within which the UK and EU shall negotiate and conclude a withdrawal agreement has commenced.

According to Article 50(2) TEU, the first step in this process is for the European Council to agree upon a set of guidelines defining the framework for the EU side of the negotiations.

A first draft of these guidelines was circulated by European Council President Donald Tusk on Friday 31st March 2017.

The purpose of this post is to follow up from a post written last October on the role of the European Council and the Brexit process. Continue reading →

The UK and sickness insurance for mobile citizens: An inequitable mess for Brexit negotiators to address

By Gareth Davies

As the Brexit negotiations become a reality, the position of UK citizens living in other EU states, and of EU citizens living in the UK attracts ever more discussion, particularly within the UK, where there has been great political support for the idea that those already established in the UK should not simply be thrown out. Nevertheless, aspects of UK procedure and bureaucracy are making it extremely difficult for Union citizens to obtain recognition of their right to reside. At the heart of this is the lack of a UK population register and of any registration requirement, meaning that most Union citizens moving to the UK do so without formalities. That may seem refreshingly easy at first. However, it means that if a Union citizen wants the UK to recognize that they have a right of permanent residence, they have to prove retrospectively that their last five years have been both in the UK, and in compliance with the terms of the Citizenship directive. That raises enormous evidential problems. One of these is to do with sickness insurance: while taking no active steps to require this from new arrivals, the UK takes the view that only those who were privately insured against almost all medical risks were actually lawfully present. This comes as a nasty shock to many migrant citizens – most of them, like over 90% of UK citizens, use the National Health Service rather than private insurance. The discussion below explains how this situation has arisen, and considers whether the UK’s standpoint complies with Union law. It suggests that this issue should not be ignored in Brexit negotiations, as it concerns the rights and lives of many thousands of Europeans. Continue reading →

The European Citizens Initiative on a European Free Movement Mechanism: A New Hope or a False Start for UK nationals after Brexit?

By Oliver Garner

I. Introduction: A New Initiative for UK nationals After Brexit?

On 11 January 2016, the European Commission registered a European Citizens Initiative to create a “European Free Movement Instrument”. The purpose of the Initiative is to lobby the European Union institutions to create a mechanism by which individuals may be directly granted the rights of free movement provided by EU citizenship, which is currently predicated upon nationality of a Member State in accordance with Article 20 TFEU. The proposers of the Initiative – the “Choose Freedom Campaign” – outline that their intention is not to reform the nature of Citizenship of the European Union; they concede that “the EU isn’t a government, and only Nation states can issue Citizenship”. Instead, their ambition is more limited – they argue that the European Union should institute a “Universal Mechanism” in order to provide individuals with a European Union passport: “we beg the Commission to delineate a method by which all Europeans of good standing may be granted a signal & permanent instrument of their status and of their right to free movement through the Union by way of a unified document of laissez-passer as permitted by Article (4) of Council Regulation 1417/2013, or by another method”.

Although the information on the Initiative on the Commission’s website and the accompanying press release do not explicitly link the putative Free Movement Mechanism to Brexit, it seems clear that such a competence for the European Union to directly issue EU passports would address the loss of rights that will be attendant to UK nationals losing the status of EU citizenship provided to them through nationality of a Member State once the United Kingdom has withdrawn in accordance with Article 50 TEU. Continue reading →

Silver linings: What to expect from environmental chapters in the EU’s Free Trade Agreements?

By Laurens Ankersmit

This blog post summarises my contribution to the Brexit & Environment roundtable organised by the British Academy & EUrefEnv on 30 January 2017. It was published before on the blog The EU Referendum and the UK Environment: an expert review. 

The UK government has announced that it will pursue a “bold and ambitious Free Trade Agreement” with the EU. The EU, no stranger to negotiating such agreements, typically includes in its FTAs a chapter dedicated to sustainable development. From the start, it should be clear that these chapters come nowhere near the protection offered by current EU environmental legislation. That said, these chapters may present some opportunities. This contribution seeks to explain the EU’s approach to environmental protection in its FTAs and identifies four key options for a potential future environmental chapter in a UK-EU FTA. Continue reading →

“So long (as) and Farewell?” The United Kingdom Supreme Court in Miller

By Oliver Garner

Introduction – A Timely History Lesson

On the 24th January 2017, 7 months to the day of the result of the UK’s referendum to leave the European Union, the President of the United Kingdom Supreme Court delivered the judgment in the Miller appeal. The Court held, by an 8-3 majority, that the UK Government did not have the power to give notice under Article 50 TEU to withdraw from the European Union without a prior Act of Parliament .

Lord Neuberger started the announcement in the manner of a history lecture, detailing the United Kingdom’s accession to the then European Economic Community in 1973. This was a fitting introduction to a judgment which at times reads like a lesson in the UK’s constitution. Accordingly, this lesson encompasses the place that EU law occupies within this order. This post will attempt to provide a concise summary of the magisterial judgment, before providing some comment on the salient issues relevant to EU law. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: January 2017

Conference “How deep is your law? Brexit. Technologies. Modern conflicts”

Vilnius, 27-28 April 2017. Deadline for abstract submission: 1 February 2017.

Call for Papers: German Law Journal Special Issue “Constitutional Identity in the Age of Global Immigration”

Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 February 2017.

Conference: ” Post-Brexit Britain in A World of Preferential Trade Agreements “

University of Birmingham, 24 February 2017. (Free) registration necessary.

Call for Papers: Austrian Review of International and European Law

Deadline for submissions: 1 March 2017.

Workshop “European Standardisation for Internal Market and its Constitutional Challenges”

Lund University, 6-7 April 2017. (Free) registration necessary.

The power to conclude the EU’s new generation of FTA’s: AG Sharpston in Opinion 2/15

By Laurens Ankersmit

To say that the EU’s new generation of trade agreements (such as CETA and TTIP) is politically controversial is becoming somewhat of an understatement. These free trade agreements (FTA), going beyond mere tariff reduction and facilitating hyperglobalization, have faced widespread criticism from civil society, trade unions, and academics. It may come as no surprise therefore that the legal issue over who is competent to conclude such agreements (the EU alone, or the EU together with the Member States) has received considerable public attention, ensuring that the Advocate General Sharpston’s response to the Commission’s request for an Opinion (Opinion 2/15) on the conclusion of the EU-Singapore FTA (EUSFTA)  has made the headlines of several European newspapers.

The Opinion of Advocate General Sharpston in Opinion 2/15, delivered on 21 December, is partly sympathetic to the Commission’s arguments on EU powers, but ultimately refutes the most outlandish of the Commission’s claims to EU power vis-à-vis that of its constituent Member States. The Opinion is of exceptional length (570 paragraphs, to my knowledge the longest Opinion ever written), and contains an elaborate discussion on the nature of the division of powers between the EU and the Member States and detailed reasoning on specific aspects of the EUSFTA such as transport services, investment protection, procurement, sustainable development, and dispute settlement.

Given the breadth of the AG’s conclusions, the aim of this post is to discuss the Opinion only in relation to investment protection and to reflect upon some of the consequences for the Commission’s investment policy, perhaps the most controversial aspect of this new generation of trade agreements. Continue reading →

Top ten most read posts of 2016

By the editors

As is becoming a tradition with our blog, we present to you our top 10 most read posts of the last year. Blogging in 2016 on EU law was no doubt marked by Brexit. The result of the UK’s advisory referendum on EU membership on 23 June 2016, which returned a slim majority in favour of ‘Brexit’ provoked much discussion on this blog (10 posts so far) and elsewhere about the UK’s future relationship with the EU and the future of the EU itself. It is therefore no surprise that three of this year’s top 10 blog posts dissect this momentous moment. But Brexit was surely not the only topic that gathered the attention of our readers.

Keeping in mind that there is a certain bias in favour of older posts which have had more time to become popular, this is the 2016 list of most read posts of the year: Continue reading →

Referring Brexit to the Court of Justice of the European Union: Why Revoking an Article 50 Notice Should be Left to the United Kingdom

By Oliver Garner

An Encore to (R)Miller from the Court of Justice?
There is a potential European encore to the constitutional drama of the UK High Court decision in R(Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. The judgment found that the UK government cannot trigger Article 50 TEU without Parliament’s involvement. The government has already indicated its intention to appeal directly to the UK Supreme Court (UKSC). Certain commentators in the media have picked up on the possibility that the Supreme Court could refer (certain aspects of) the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This has been referred to as ‘the constitutional equivalent of breaking the space-time continuum’.

Of course, as the reaction to the judgment in (R)Miller has shown, the UK media are not afraid of exaggeration. The first and most important thing to reiterate is that the CJEU could not act as the final constitutional arbiter of the question in the case of whether the UK government may use the royal prerogative to give notice under Article 50 TEU. The EU law clause is clear that the condition for the decision to withdraw is ‘accordance with [the] constitutional requirements’ of the Member State. Therefore, the final decision on the substance of whether these requirements have been fulfilled will always be for that Member State’s highest judicial authority. Instead, the possibility of a referral to the Court of Justice in the case concerns one specific aspect of the withdrawal clause: whether the notification to the European Council of an intention to withdraw under Article 50(2) is revocable. The silence of the clause can be seen to constitute a ‘gap’ in the law.

However, this post will argue that it is not necessary for the Court of Justice to prove an authoritative determination on this question of EU law in order for the UK Supreme Court to decide the specific question of UK constitutional law in the (R)Miller adjudication. Therefore – in the specific case of (R)Miller  – the UK court is under no obligation under Article 267 TFEU to refer the question to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The post will go on to consider the hypothetical situations in which there may be such an obligation to refer, and will suggest how the Court of Justice should determine the question in such a scenario. Continue reading →

May’s March towards Brexit: some comments on the potential legal implications of the UK’s ‘Great Repeal Bill’

By Oliver Garner

‘Brexit means Brexit’ means March

We have learned two important things about what ‘Brexit means Brexit’ means from the Conservative party conference last week: (1) Theresa May’s government will trigger Article 50 TEU in March 2017 at the latest; and (2) a ‘Great Repeal Bill’ will be proposed in the next Queen’s speech which will repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and enshrine all EU law into domestic law (at least for the time being). This post will focus on some potential legal implications of the ‘Great Repeal’ of EU law in the United Kingdom. It will consider how exactly EU Directives and Regulations will be implemented into UK law, before considering the substantive issue of whether such implementation means that EU citizens in the UK will retain their ‘acquired rights’ to residence. The argument will be that enacting the ‘Great Reform Bill’ will be a far more difficult task for the UK government and Parliament than its announcement suggests. Furthermore, without extensive amendments, such wholesale transposition could undermine the effectiveness of the withdrawal from the Union legal order.

The announcement of a March Article 50 notification does not provide answers to all the vagaries of the legal procedure of Article 50 (including exactly how notification will be sent, and which government minister will be responsible). However, it does provide political certainty as to the timeframe of Brexit, barring the notification being blocked by the outcome of the upcoming constitutional challenge to the government’s authority to trigger Article 50 without the consent of Parliament. Under Article 50(3), if a withdrawal treaty is not concluded, and if there is no unanimous agreement to extend the time-frame of negotiations, the United Kingdom will cease to be a Member State of the European Union by March 2019. Continue reading →

“In the Light of the Guidelines”: Brexit and the European Council

By Darren Harvey

During her speech at the Conservative Party conference on Sunday, Prime Minister Theresa May stated that the UK would be notifying the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the EU in accordance with Article 50(1) TEU by the end of March 2017 at the latest.

Earlier that day, during an interview on the BBC with Andrew Marr, the Prime Minister was asked what will happen immediately after the notification to leave the EU has been made.

The Prime Minister responded:

“Well, it’s for the European Union, the remaining members of the EU have to decide what the process of negotiation is. I hope, and I’ll be saying to them, that now that they know what our timing is going to be, it’s not an exact date but they know it’ll be in the first quarter of next year, that we’ll be able to have some preparatory work, so that once the trigger comes we have a smoother process of negotiation.”

Shortly after this announcement, European Council President Donald Tusk took to Twitter, stating that once Article 50 had been triggered, the remaining 27 EU Member States would “engage to safeguard [their] interests” – thus suggesting that no preliminary negotiations shall be conducted prior to such notification.

This exchange raises a fundamental question about the Article 50 TEU withdrawal process that has not yet been fully considered; namely, what role will the European Council play in this process? Continue reading →

Brexit: A Tale of Two Agreements?

By Hugo Flavier and Sébastien Platon

There seems to be a common assumption (see, among many others, here 3.6, here or here at 14:00) that there is a distinction between two kinds of « post-Brexit agreements », i.e. the withdrawal agreement (the divorce settlement) and the agreement regarding the future relationship between the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU). However, this distinction is, in fact, not very clear. It raises, in particular, several questions related to the legal basis and the nature (exclusive or not) of the withdrawal agreement. This contribution aims to clarify the distinction between these two agreements and identify the legal difficulties arising from their articulation. It will be argued that, due to some legal uncertainties, the negotiators of these agreements should be careful of their respective contents. Continue reading →

Brexit, Europhobia and Xenophobia

By Christopher Harding

One of the most worrying aspects of the recent campaigning in the UK ahead of the referendum on UK membership of the EU, and the subsequent outcome of the referendum, was the opportunity provided to express more openly and forcibly feelings which appeared to be Eurosceptic or even more deeply Europhobic or xenophobic. On the one hand, public opinion in the UK has long been considered insular and Eurosceptic, but the referendum seemed to trigger the more open and confident expression of xenophobic views and suggests a polarisation of opinion on Britain’s international and European roles. On the other hand, Britain also has a reputation as a welcoming and tolerant society in its general attitude towards those from other countries. This contribution is a reflection on the reality of tolerance and intolerance in contemporary British society and how recent events in the UK fit into the wider European legal and cultural landscape of human mobility across frontiers. Continue reading →

Could it all have been avoided? Brexit and Treaty-permitted restrictions on movement of workers

By Gareth Davies

Of course, it wasn’t all about immigration. But that claimed flood of Eastern Europeans was certainly at the heart of the leave campaign, and, unusually for an immigration debate, it was their right to work in the UK that was the political issue: there were too many of them, they were pushing down wages, they were keeping the low-skilled native out of work, they were costing the government a fortune in in-work benefits, they were making towns and villages unrecognisable and alienating the more established inhabitants.

Whether or not they were true, a lot of these claims seemed to be shared by both sides. Cameron didn’t so much deny them, as offer counter-claims (but they do add to the economy) and promises of change (if you vote remain, we’ll have a new deal and be able to do something about it!).

So the question is this: if the government thought that free movement of workers was causing such terrible problems, why didn’t it impose restrictions years ago when the post-Enlargement flood was at its high point and the issue first became prominent? Continue reading →

Union Citizenship – Still Europeans’ Destiny after Brexit?

By Gareth Davies

If the UK withdraws from the EU, then its citizens will cease to be citizens of the Union. That much is simple – Article 20 TFEU doesn’t leave any doubt that Union citizens are those who are citizens of the Member States.

Still, while that provision was once thought to make Union citizenship dependent on national citizenship, in Rottmann the Court turned it neatly around, showing how it made national citizenship equally dependent on EU law. In that case a German citizen was faced with threatened denaturalisation, which would be likely to leave him stateless. He argued that the denaturalisation, because it also deprived him of his Union citizenship, was an interference with his EU law rights, and so should be constrained by EU law.

He won on the principle, although he probably lost on the facts: the Court said that indeed, a national measure which deprives a Union citizen of their Union citizenship clearly falls within the scope of EU law, and is therefore subject to judicial review in the light of EU law rules and principles. However, it went on to say that such a measure is not per se prohibited. It must merely be proportionate. Denaturalising fraudsters probably is, in most circumstances. Continue reading →

After Brexit: The road ahead. A vote to leave but a decision to remain?

By Oliver Garner

On 23 June 2016, the population of the United Kingdom voted “leave” on the referendum question of whether the United Kingdom should leave or remain within the European Union.  The consequences of this vote could be that the government of the Member State triggers Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union; this will start the process of the United Kingdom becoming the first Member State to withdraw from the European Union. This seismic event poses a new challenge to our understanding of European integration as a progressive process of ever closer union.  Instead, fragmentation in the scope of integration could now occur through the rights created by European Union law no longer being enforceable in the territory of the United Kingdom, and no longer being applicable to United Kingdom citizens within the territory of the European Union.

Much has already been written in the months preceding the referendum regarding the process of the withdrawal negotiations following the triggering of Article 50. In contrast, this particular post will focus on whether the conditions for withdrawal have in fact been fulfilled, and therefore whether the United Kingdom is indeed bound to withdraw from the European Union. The result has triggered outrage from the 48% of the population who voted to remain, with calls for a second referendum, suggestions that the House of Commons could ignore the result, and a promise by the leader of the Liberal Democrats that the party would run on a platform to remain within the Union in any future general election.  Despite the exercise in direct democracy, the answer of whether the United Kingdom must now withdraw is not clear from the country’s constitution because there is no precedent for the withdrawal from a multilateral treaty regime which creates directly effective legal rights for citizens. Continue reading →